Monthly Archives: July 2013

Please note that I refrained from titling this post “currantly.” Hold your applause, though. Since I mentioned it, I obviously thought about it.

Currently, my patience is lacking. I’ve started shaking in my chair, due to lack of inspiration, I guess. I’ve suffered; others have probably suffered. I’ve been a little too honest, a bit less nice, and a lot sarcastic.

But pluckin’ currants, or what I like to call, spiny little devils—now that’s a lesson in patience. That will slap the sarcasm right out of you. When faced with small 1/2-pint boxes of rubies and pearls and branches, I usually feel helpless before I start, like my fingers will be too weak for the task. Pulling out each thin stem feels a bit like plucking an eyebrow; the stem resists, releasing from the thick skin of the tiny, seed-filled berries with an inaudible pop. It usually comes out clean and whole but sometimes, it will leave behind a tiny fragment of itself. The process can be pleasant, though. Each of my plucks feels prodding and deliberate. It calms my nerves. I plucked the currants for this cake alone at 10pm in my 85-degree mid–heat wave kitchen, which I had lit dimly. I resisted the urge to play music or to check emails while plucking. I focused on just plucking. With each branch, I got faster and better; my plucks became cleaner and more graceful.

I’ve been more inspired than ever by the farmers’ market this year. I’m not sure why. My meals have been easy but beautiful in how fresh they are. But last week I saw a shift at the market—a sudden one. It was ten times fuller, more vibrant than it had been just a week before. There was now an American flag of berry varieties, corn (!), potatoes, multi-colored carrots, cherry and grape tomatoes. I am missing the asparagus and strawberries of early summer, but my mood brightened as I made my rounds, trying not to buy everything. (As I walked, I recited a staccato chant, “one person, one stomach, shared refrigerator.”)

But despite those spring/early summer goods being gone, there were still so many peas. Peas. Have we not had our fill? Since the farmers’ markets started for the season, every farm, every vendor has had what seems like a bottomless basket of English Shelling Peas. I love them, sure. They’re sweet and crunchy and green, and I love the way they pop in between my teeth. But their supply seems never-ending. I had always thought their season was relatively short. I thought they couldn’t survive the heat. But hordes swarm them week after week, picking, eating, bagging, buying, and there are still so many once I reach the market at my late hour.

I’ve been thinking hard about something lately. These thoughts weren’t initially spurred by peas, of course. My dad’s friend and co-worker, let’s just call him [J] for the sake of anonymity, passed away last week. He started suffering a year or so ago from an advance stage of cancer. Boom. Out of no where. I’d be lying to you if I said I knew this man. I met him once. Tall, skinny as heck, long-haired, and a bit country. That’s all I remember about him. But what I do know is that he trained my dad at his company (my dad has been with the company for around 25 years) and my dad eventually became one of his bosses and managers. My dad said he was brilliant; he may have even used the term “genius,” I don’t know. But I do know that he was someone who touched my dad’s life profoundly.

I see him everyday. He’s a constant that I appreciate. He’s stoic, not showing much outward feeling of pleasure or pain. He brightens my mornings, my evenings, and my weekends. I don’t know the mystery man’s name. To me he is just Mr. 66.

I have long had a fascination with commuters—my nameless companions and the strangers. My feet usually do the work in the mornings, but sometimes I take the bus. The 66 bus. The bus so infamous that it has it’s own fake twitter account. There are familiar visages in sight every morning. The sitting old, sour-faced woman whose nose scrunches up every time a young person’s backpack accidentally graces her face on the sardine-can of a morning commute. The young mother with the rhinestone-studded, electic blue iPhone case and her super stylin’ little boy, a 2-year-old Lebron James fan. There’s the guy who looks strikingly like someone I went to high school with and who is always biting off a cream cheese–filled plain bagel from Kupel’s. I know their stops, and they probably know mine.